THE

BROTHERHOOD

OF ANGELS AND OF MEN

THE ANGEL OF THE POINTING HAND
 THE BROTHERHOOD
OF ANGELS AND OF MEN
by Geoffrey Hodson
Foreword by Annie Besant
ARIEL PRESS
Atlanta Columbus, Ohio
 THE BROTHERHOOD
OF ANGELS
AND OF MEN
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 FOREWORD
I have been asked to introduce this book to a sceptical world, and yet a world
in which every religion, each scripture, asserts the fact of the existence of Angels
and of their occasional appearances among men. They may be called by any
name—angels, nature-spirits, devas (shining ones), elementals. Angels or devas
is the term often applied to the higher grades, nature spirits, elementaries, fairies,
to the lower.
At this period of evolution, we are under the influence of a natural force,
which will slowly become predominant in every department of nature; it is the
force which works for cooperation between angelhood and humanity and seeks
to build bridges by which the two great races, human and angelic, may combine
for their mutual good. These bridges are ceremonies, chiefly in religions and in
Freemasonry, for these deal with The Highest spiritual worlds through all
worlds, the superhuman, the human, down to the lowest, the sub-human.
I have not studied the subject closely, as Mr. Geoffrey Hodson has done, but
his observations are congruous with the many details in Hindu books and with
my general knowledge on the subject, gained in travelling in different countries
as well as by reading. In Hungary, for instance, the nature spirits of the earth
seemed specially active, quaint little creatures, veritable gnomes, entirely
different from the gorgeous hosts of Kubera in India, though both are concerned
with the mineral kingdom.
This book is specially interesting in the suggestions made by the angels of
ways of reaching them, and as to mutual cooperation, and many may be inclined
to work for “The Brotherhood of Angels and of Men.”
—ANNIE BESANT, D.L.
1927
 PREFACE
As I consider a Preface to this reprint of The Brotherhood of Angels and of
Men, I find myself in thought and memory back again deep in the woods of the
small village of Sheepscombe in Gloucestershire. There, in 1924, as I was
endeavouring to observe and record descriptions of the nature-spirit life, I almost
suddenly found my consciousness translated (if I may use such a term) to the
level at which I beheld the great Member of the Angelic Hosts who named
himself to me, “Bethelda.” While I was fully conscious and able to dictate, he
transmitted to me ideas which have gradually become published in five
successive books.*

*The Brotherhood of Angels and of Men, The Angelic Hosts, Be Ye Perfect, Man the Triune God, The
Supreme Splendour.

Whenever I return to England I always revisit the much-loved village, the

cottage and the garden and the woods where my mind became opened to some
knowledge of the Kingdom of the Gods. Indeed, a book of that title, illustrated
by a South African artist, Miss Ethelwynne Quail, is just now reappearing in its
seventh edition.
Thus, I understand, the idea of collaboration between Angels and men in the
service of God and humanity has reached large numbers in many parts of the
world, and the guidance given in this book has been practised beneficially by
many people.
I am grateful to the Publishers of these books and especially to Dr. Annie
Besant who so generously encouraged me from the beginning and wrote a
Foreword to this work.
GEOFFREY HODSON ADYAR, 1973
THE BROTHERHOOD
OF ANGELS
AND OF MEN
 CHAPTER I

THE BROTHERHOOD
The ideal of this brotherhood is to draw angels and men, two branches of the
infinite family of God, into close cooperation. The chief purpose of such
cooperation is to uplift the human race.
To this end the angels, on their side, are ready to participate as closely as
possible in every department of human life and in every human activity that
holds cooperation in view.
Those members of the human race who will throw open heart and mind to their
brethren of the other sphere, will find an immediate response, and a gradually
increasing conviction of its reality.
While the angels make no conditions, and impose no restrictions or limits to
the activities and developments resulting from cooperation, they assume that no
human brother would invoke them for personal and material gain. They ask for
the acceptance of the motto of the Brotherhood1 and its practical application to
human life in every aspect.
They ask those who would invoke their presence, to concentrate the whole of
their faculties on the development of the qualities of Purity, Simplicity,
Directness and Impersonality, as well as on the acquirement of knowledge of the
great Plan whereby the spiritual, intellectual and material constituents,
composing alike man and the universe, maintain the ordered march of
evolutionary progress. In this way the fundamental basis of every human activity
will be the teachings and doctrines of that Divine and Ancient Wisdom which
has always reigned supreme as the directing influence in the councils of the
angels.
The special divisions of the angel host with whom cooperation would be
immediately practicable and beneficial are:
 The Angels of Power.
The Angels of Healing.
The Guardian Angels of the Home.
The Angels who build Form, ever embodying archetypal ideas.
The Angels of Nature.
The Angels of Music.
The Angels of Beauty and Art.
ANGELS OF POWER
The Angels of Power will teach men to release the deeper levels of spiritual
energy latent within them, and will fill, inform, inspire and charge every human
activity with that fiery and resistless energy which is their most prominent
characteristic. At present, they find in ceremonial a natural medium for their
gifts and for their desire to aid their human brethren. Ceremonial always attracts
their attention, and, properly performed, provides a channel through which they
can pour their forces. They are present at every religious ceremony, participating
according to the measure of their capacity, and to the degree which the ceremony
itself permits; they can work more powerfully if the mental attitude of the
officiants and participants is receptive.
ANGELS OF THE HEALING ART
The Healing Angels—under their mighty Head, the Archangel Raphael—
being filled with love for their human brethren, pursue their work continuously.
Their presence by the sick beds of men is a reality, though the minds and hearts
of the majority of those responsible for healing of sickness are closed against
them. Many who suffer and have suffered, know them well. They stand in their
thousands on the spiritual and mental thresholds of every sick-room, in hospital
or home, eager to enter in. Hitherto, but few have succeeded, the barriers
upraised by human minds are often insuperable; should they break through these
in spite of opposition, the precious healing which they bear in outstretched arms
would be lost, dissipated in the effort to overcome resistance.

GUARDIAN ANGELS OF THE HOME

 The Guardian Angels love the homely ways of men, they desire to share the
hours of labour and of ease; they love children and their play, and all the happy
atmosphere of the home. They would guard men’s homes, keeping away all
influences of danger and of strife, of darkness and disease. They hear the
children’s prayers at night and bear them to the Lord, and they vivify every
human thought of love by adding something of their love and life; often they
bear the thought on its mission and pour it, illumined and increased, into the
receiver’s heart. They tend the aged and the sick. They are ever ready to shield
from harm. To all whose hearts and homes are open to them, they would gladly
come, bringing many blessings from on high—blessings of harmony and love.
The Building Angels guide growth in every world, and, shaping it according to
the law, seek ever to improve, to perfect and inspire. Each immortal spark which
finds birth in worlds of thought, of feeling and of flesh, and, growing, becomes
man, owes all its vehicles, or bodies, to the angel builders; so also do every gem,
every plant, every animal, every globe, and every universe. They stand in graded
orders, these builders, each labouring at his own height, the lesser ones build
gems, the greater ones worlds; there are some who build the outer forms of
angels and of men.
It is lack of recognition of their place and aid that has made childbirth in later
times a period of agony or death. When men invoke their aid, they will teach the
human race how to bring forth their kind with joy, they will see that the great
sacrifice is no longer marred by fear and cries of agony and woe.
These angels who build man, have, as their Queen, a Holy One, who won
freedom from the burden of the flesh and, ascending joined the Angel Hosts. She
labours ever for the cause of human motherhood, and even now is bending all
Her mighty strength and calling all Her Angel Court to labour for the upliftment
of womanhood throughout the world. Through Her angel messengers, She
Herself is present at every human birth, unseen and unknown, it is true, but if
men would but open their eyes She would be revealed.
She sends this message through the Brotherhood to men:
“In the Name of Him whom long ago I bore, I come to your aid. I have taken
every woman into my heart, to hold there a part of her that through it I may help
her in her time of need.
“Uplift the women of your race till all are seen as queens, and to such queens
let every man be as a king, that each may honour each, seeing the other’s royalty.
Let every home, however small, become a court, every son a knight, every child
a page. Let all treat all with chivalry, honouring in each their royal parentage,
their kingly birth; for there is royal blood in every man; all are the children of the
KING.”
THE ANGELS OF NATURE
The Nature Angels are widely distributed, each dwelling and working in his
own element. They range from brownie, elf and fairy sprite, through undine and
sylph, to the creatures of the fire. The angels of nature are to be found
everywhere around men’s haunts, in tree, in flower, in stone, in cloud, ensouling
every form.
The growth of crops, of fruit and flowers, is under their control. It is they who
bring, when men so live as to create them, earthquake and storm and flood. If
humanity would invoke their aid, they might learn from them how all the moods
and products of nature may be controlled. The climate and the weather of the
world answer to law; salamander, undine and sylph of storm are but the agents of
that law.
If you would appeal to the gods of Music you must rise to those levels of the
Self where creative energy, creative power, is stored; for the Angels of Music are
but the embodiments of the creative Word of God, the expressions of His Voice.
When He speaks, a mighty burst of song springs from their hearts and pours its
resonance throughout the graded order of their race.
They sing in their myriads in answer to the Word of God. Their sound is as of
a million harps touched by immortal hands, their voice is like the surging of the
sea. From the centre of the Universe, like a mighty tidal flood, their song goes
forth in wave on wave of glory, as order after order answers to the Word; they
send the chorus forth, outwards to the confines of the Universe.
Creation never ceases. His Voice is heard continually, the Voice of Him Who,
seeing visions of extra universal space, of cosmic ideations, speaks, telling His
vision, and telling, calls the vision forth, creating it in form within His Universe.
At His Voice Angels of Music leap from His Lips to become the agents of the
power of Sound; all the world of creative power is filled with the harmony of
His Voice; and the Angels are to Him as harps, as glorious stringed instruments,
responding to His will. As they sing, they glow with the colour of their song.
They live in worlds of Light and Sound, they are the expression of cosmic hues
and cosmic song within the limits of a universe.
Our Logos is a lens through which the light of myriads of universes passes into
His own; He is a mighty organ-pipe under the hand of the Absolute. All the
Logoi of all the universe answer to the cosmic keyboard on which It plays. Thus
Colour and Sound are born, those wondrous twins, and brought within the
limitations of earthly time and space.
Every angel, and every man in his true self, glows with that wondrous light,
answers to the Divine Song, knows well the tones of the Creative Voice. The true
Self in man is lens and organ-pipe in miniature; as he sings and glows in answer
to the Voice of God he reproduces in his grade but with exactitude, every tone
and micro tone of His Voice, every shade of the spectrum of His light. The
splendours of that rainbow-hued world pass downwards to the lesser self, and
there hover, that even the lowest self may hear.
The mission of the Music angels is to bear this radiance of a million prisms,
this surging of a million planets, downwards to the ears of men outwards into
material worlds, that even tree and plant and mole beneath the earth may hear
the Voice of God and, hearing it, obey. Every sound you hear on earth is an echo
of His Voice, and every light in every colour comes from the dazzling radiance
of His Eyes.
You cannot call these angels down into the lowest self; to see and hear them
you must rise towards their world; as you cross its threshold you will see the
mighty throng, ever bathed in myriad rainbow hues, ever chanting forth in
anthem-tones the Words of God. Through the sound of their trumpets and flutes,
the beating of their wings, and through the light of the fiery spendour of their
eyes and the radiant beauty of their forms comes the music of their voices. Ever
they sing thus and play from birth to death of universes—they remain the choral
orchestra of God.
They are in need of human ears and human hearts, that through them they may
bring our world in tune, that men may answer ever more and more to the sound
and rhythm of their song. To them, all men and all angels are instruments, every
faculty of mind and heart is a string. They watch each newborn race with
eagerness, seeing in it the promise of new instruments, a wider range of tone,
another organ-pipe to answer to the breath of God. They see the unity of all,
know each as part of the one great instrument upon which God plays that which
He hears beyond the realms of time and space. Through this instrument- through
all the manifold music—throbs the beating of His Heart, the rhythm of the
universal pulse. All the movements of the stars, the lighting and setting of suns,
the birth of planets and their death, the evolution of the race, the waves that
break upon the shore, the rise and fall of continents, the melting of the Polar
seas, the beating of the hearts of men, the germination of the seed, all these
respond to the rhythm of the pulsing heart of God.
This is the burden of the song the Gods of Music sing.

ANGELS OF BEAUTY AND OF ART

Everything divine is beautiful, expressing in its degree the perfect beauty of
the Absolute.
The greater the density in which God limits Himself, the deeper His beauty lies
hidden. Some among the Angel hosts, seeing the beauty of their God, themselves
embody it, and take it as their duty in the world of form to aid the builders of
forms, that they may fashion all things, never forgetting the beauty of the pattern
by which they work.
These Angels of Beauty seek to mould both growing and completed forms;
that more and more the hidden loveliness may shine forth. As Music angels are
the voice of God, these angels are His Hand, with which He paints upon the
canvas of the universe the picture of the vision He has seen.
Every time a man aspires towards the Beautiful, and tries to model, paint or
draw according to The Highest he can see, he makes himself akin to the angels
of the Hand of God; for a time their rhythm becomes his. If he called them they
would come and add their vision to his own, their genius of colour and of form,
would wake in him their thirst for all things beautiful, would strive to stimulate
his mind to break the conventions and the limitations of his time. They would
implant new theories, fresh ideals within his brain; so that the tendency of
human mind to set a limit and fix a law would be overcome, and creative genius,
hid deep as though within a prison, would be released. So his soul would be set
free, and mounting on the wings of art might attain the vision that is ever new,
might override the canons of the past; for even the Beauty of
God is subject to the law of change, and grows in splendour day by day.
 The Angels of Colour and of Form would bring to man this growing beauty,
this ever- increasing wonder, this infinite loveliness of God, that every man
might share with them the honour which is theirs of acting as the Hand of the
Supreme Artist. Invoke angels in your schools of art, invite them to your aid;
then ugliness shall be banished and all the world be more beautiful.
Their message to men is that Beauty ranks high among the offerings on the
altar of the Gods, that Beauty should be regarded as a virtue, and ugliness be
branded as a sin; that every child from birth should see only what is lovely,
graceful and delicate.
Beauty is not born, nor can it die, it is eternal. Only a fragment of Beauty’s self
can become manifest, only a gleam from the eternal Sun of Beauty can shine
through a universe; men seeing it, and dazzled by the sight, think that they see
the whole, though the whole can never be seen by angel or by man. But the
fragment grows, the radiance of the gleam increases, as more and more the
universe embodies it. More and more the Self and Beauty appears as one in
manifested worlds, as they are one in worlds unmanifest.
True beauty is ever new; and this is the sign by which you may distinguish
between the false and the true. False beauty, product of the lesser selves, changes
not, is fixed, and like all things that are “fixed” in a universe which is ever
growing, is old from the moment it is born.
As there is a motion throughout the universe, so motion must be suggested by
true beauty. There is no beauty in a picture of death, though death itself is not
without beauty. Beauty is the soul of all natural things, and lies hid in every
virtue, especially love. You need no other standard, require no other law; nor is
there any other virtue so great as the love of the beautiful, for beauty is the
essence of them all.
Every law you frame, and every statue you enact, should be tested by this
question: “Will the result be beautiful?” This is the ideal by which a citizen
should measure his conduct and his duty to the State. This is the standard for the
nations in their Councils and their Leagues, for with one glance the artist Ruler
of a world can estimate the worth of governments and kings. To Him, the
measure of a nation’s ugliness is the measure of its mismanagement of affairs;
the measure of a nation’s beauty, as of the true royalty of its king, is that of the
progress it has made. Welcome, then, as continents, as nations, as men, the
presence of the angels of the Hand of God, the Devas of Beauty, for they will fill
your worlds of feeling and of thought with such an impress of their gift that your
more solid selves will be unable to resist. Aided by the angels of the Hand of
God, all men may become artists, for the Vision Splendid will come so close that
even the dullest eyes must see. Poets, dreamers, painters, sculptors, will arise in
every family, till all the world becomes a studio, and earth and stone and brick
are recognised as clay for the modeller’s hand.
You shall build cities fairer than were ever seen in Greece, for you are Greece
reincarnate; but you have grown since then; the angels who taught in Greece
have grown since then. Together we might fill whole continents with cities fairer
than those of old.
You shall mould your thoughts, your feelings and your flesh; you shall build a
Race godlike in its beauty and its strength; the angel hosts will come to aid you
in your task.
This is the vision of the future that we bring, a future of limitless possibilities
of splendour, when once more the children of God, angels and men, come
together for the fulfilment of the Plan.
 CHAPTER 2

THE FIRST MESSAGE

Since the Great One has drawn so close to our world and to yours, it is of first
importance that the bridge between the two should be fash- ioned, that the time
may be hastened when it may be used freely from either side. We must devise
better means of communication; and your studies might well have for their
object the widening of the bridge and the instruction of your brethren in its use.
They will find us coming more than halfway to meet them, for the Lord Himself
has decreed that we should draw together in closer bonds of unity.
The first essential on your side is a belief in our existence; to that end, more
information about us must be given, and presented in such a manner that it will
be acceptable to the scientist as well as to the poet, the artist and the dreamer. In
your scientific studies, as they take you deeper into the superphysical realms, be
ever observant of our place in the manipulation and adjustment of nature’s
forces. Behind every phenomenon you will find a member of our race. Our
position in nature is closely akin to that of the engineer; he is not the force
himself; he directs it, and as his constant care and oversight are essential to the
efficient running of the machine, so the angels, or devas,2 are essential to the
efficient running of the great machine of nature, as well as of each individual
engine of which it is composed, from atom to archangel. So long as the presence
of our invisible hosts is ignored by science there will be gaps in their knowledge,
gaps which can only be filled by a comprehension of our place in the scheme of
things.
That knowledge is not likely to be obtained by the use of physical instruments;
and, therefore, the second essential is an increase in the number of human beings
able to contact us. Perhaps the easiest means of approach will be found to be
through the love of nature. Those who would find us must learn to contact nature
far more intimately than is at present possible to the average man. In addition to
a deeper appreciation of the beauty of nature, there must be that reverence for all
forms and moods, for all her manifold expression, which springs from a
recognition of the presence of the Divine of which these forms, moods and
beauties are but the outward expression. From such an appreciation there will
arise naturally a realisation of the sacred nature of all beauty, and a desire to
draw near to the divinity within. Beyond that again, a living sense of unity with
nature must be reached, till you can see yourself in every tree, in every flower, in
every blade of grass, in every passing cloud, and realise that the manifold
diversities which compose a valley or a garden or a wide panorama of mountain,
sea and sky, are but expressions of the One Self which is in you, of which you
are a part, by means of which you can pierce the external veil of beauty till it can
hide from you no longer the vision of the Self. When this realisation has been
gained, you will be on the threshold of our world, you will have learned to see
with our eyes and to know with our minds and to feel with our hearts.
This capacity alone, however, will not suffice, for it is as yet a path which few
can tread. It may, nevertheless, be regarded as the broad highway leading to the
bridge.
Every true artist has gone along that road, yet few have found us; for the
enquiring mind of the scientist and the penetrating gaze of the seer must be
added to the sensitiveness of the artist. The scientist must learn to begin where
the artist leaves off, and, placing himself within the central heart of nature,
pursue his investigations outwards towards the circumference. He will not lose
in his self-realisation that clarity of mind, that exactitude of observation, which
he so rightly prizes, but he will direct them from a new point of view. He must
place his mind inside the tree, the plant, the animal, the element, the atom he
would study; and to do this he must first follow the path of the artist and the
poet, the philosopher and the metaphysician, combining the capacities of each
within himself. The realisation of the angel world will gradually begin to
illumine his consciousness and, through it, every problem to which his mind is
turned.
Let him first gain the necessary technique of the laboratory and the textbook,
and then, forsaking these for a time, let him meditate, preferably amid the
beauties of nature, appealing to us for guidance and for aid. If he be sincere,
knowledge will surely come to him.
Next comes the way of ceremony, where divine ideas, words of power and
precision of action are combined in a manner closely corresponding to that by
which the angels work. Let all the churches and all the priests who seek this way,
throw open their minds and their work to us, grant us a greater share in their
beneficent activities. Members of the angel hosts are hovering over the heads of
all congregations, standing beside every priest; yet how often do they find
themself shut out by barriers upraised by human minds. Let priest and
congregation alike throw their minds open to a recognition of our presence in
their midst, and invoke our aid; soon, very soon, some will begin to hear the
beating of our wings, to feel an added power in their work, and, later, an
increasing happiness in their lives. Like Him Who has come, we bring the
message of happiness—we, who are expressions of bliss divine, we for whom
pain is not, nor sorrow, nor parting, nor death, nor any injury, but only joy, light
and ever- increasing power, as we learn to express more and more of that Will
Divine from which we sprang.
For us, the cornucopia of life is ever full to overflowing and from its
abundance we would feed humanity. The happiness which never fades, but
grows until it becomes an ecstasy of bliss, shall be theirs. Preach, then, ye
ministers of God, the Gospel of Happiness, in His Name and in ours. Would you
but throw open the doors of your hearts and minds to us, doors which, in spite of
the ancient teaching of your faiths, are fast locked against us, we would fill your
churches, mosques and temples.
The healer, too, might invoke us to come to his aid. The sick beds of men call
us, who know no pain. Wonders of healing might be performed if we might
come freely. To attain this end, you must combine healing with religion, with
ceremonial, as well as with the artist’s vision of reality. In every institution for
the care of the young, the sick and the aged, there should be established a
magnetic centre which we could use as a focus: it should be a room set apart and
made beautiful, consecrated by the proper ceremonial, which would have as its
object the invocation of Raphael and his healing angels, and of establishing an
atmosphere in which they could work. No great gift of knowledge would be
needed to do this, only sincerity and vision; the room might be shaped like an
octagon, with an altar towards the East, candles and the symbols of the religion
of the country placed thereon, and a figure of the founder of their Faith, incense,
holy water and fragrant flowers. Every morning a ceremony of invocation of the
angels should be performed, and every evening a service of thanksgiving.3 In
every ward or sickroom, a little shrine might be similarly consecrated and
similarly employed. Then every doctor would become a priest, every nurse an
acolyte; we should come and heal through them, helping in a hundred ways.
In the home life of man a place for us might be found. In some countries, the
people invite our presence, but even there, from long continued usage, old
customs have lost their life, remaining largely as empty forms. Adaptations
suited to western civilisation might well be devised by those who wish to cross
the bridge into our world.
Again, perhaps, the most suitable method would be the provision of a shrine
set apart and used exclusively for invocations and offerings to the angels. In all
times of need, sudden crises, sicknesses, births, and deaths, the aid of the Angels
would be gladly given, but the power would be greater and the presences more
real if magnetised centres were provided in the home. A single object of great
beauty, mentally associated with the angels and with nature, a bowl of flowers,
freshly gathered every day, incense, the use of a short prayer or invocation each
morning, and a benediction each evening, would suffice. Complete cleanliness,
an atmosphere of utter purity, and the single motive of cooperation for mutual
help, are essential; while added to the simple ceremony might be an appropriate
reference to the Founder of the religion of the house, and a prayer, perhaps, for
His Blessing upon both angels and men.
These few examples will be sufficient to suggest a general method of
communion and cooperation, for which variations may be devised for particular
purposes; for example, in the studio of the artist, the surgery, the consulting
room, the concert hall, the lecture room; everywhere, in fact, where angels may
be usefully employed. Further fields of mutual cooperation await us in the
realms of horticulture and agriculture.
While these practices would not immediately produce a large number of
people capable of entering into direct communication with the angels—even if
this were desirable or necessary—they would gradually effect a change in the
consciousness of the people, a change which would tend to make such
communication more easily possible. This development would show itself
particularly among the children, who, growing up in such an atmosphere, would
have every facility for developing and using powers of communication.
Many other beneficial results might be expected, culminating in a general
raising of the whole tone of human life and thought, which would tend to
become more sensitive, refined and responsive, as a result of contact with angel
consciousness. In time this would begin to affect the actual appearance of the
physical body, as well as its movements and gestures; the arts and graces of life
would begin to be more generally appreciated and expressed.
For those of humanity who find within themselves a natural response to these
ideas and an instinctive desire to apply them, centres and communities for their
practical use might be formed in the more remote country places. Every
community or centre, formed with spiritual purposes, would find its work greatly
increased in value, range and power by the recognition of the presence of angels,
and the practice of cooperation with them.

This valley4 is well adapted for such endeavours, and it is not unlikely that, in
the near future, centres, both of the Ancient Wisdom and of the new religion,
will be formed and grow here; centres in which an increasing recognition and
cooperation will be obtained from both the human and angel workers. Both
magnetically and historically, this valley is particularly suitable for the work;
whatever methods are attempted, their success will be greatly enhanced by
cooperation. A very great readiness to combine will be shown by the angels of
this district, provided always that the work has as its basis the ideals and ideas of
the Ancient Wisdom.
On the physical plane, the preparation and building of the form is your work;
on the inner planes, we will combine with your superphysical selves in pouring
in the life, in stimulating the inner growth, in the protection of the centre from
intrusion, and in the conservation of the power generated.
A centre here might serve both a working community and those who seek a
retreat for meditation and study; the measure of its success will be greatly
increased if the conception of human and angel cooperation is kept continually
to the front and the suggestion to employ such cooperation is made to all who
come within its sphere of influence. Developments might be expected which
would be the provision of a sanatorium and rest house— a semi-monastic
institution—as a retreat, for purposes of study, meditation and investigation, with
departments for literature, arts and crafts, dramatic representations, dancing and
rhythmic exercises. The successful initiation of such schemes might produce a
result which would serve as a model for the establishment of similar centres in
other parts of the world.
The essential factor for success in cooperation between us is the mental
realisation of its possibility, and the continual recollection and employment of it,
in the mental world, in every piece of work which is undertaken. Anyone who
will earnestly practise this will almost inevitably develop the power to realise the
presence and cooperation of the angels, and their never failing response to calls
for aid. It should be made clear that this conception must be preserved in its
simplest form, entirely free from all sensationalism or elaborate ceremonial, nor
is it suggested that any attempt should be made to obtain a close personal contact
with individual angels, or to employ them from motives of personal gain, interest
or curiosity; such endeavours would almost inevitably lead to disaster and
should be rigorously excluded. It must be as natural for you to work with the
angels as with each other or with domestic animals. As already stated, the
qualities of Simplicity, Purity, Directness and Impersonality must characterise all
who hope to take part successfully in any mutual endeavours. The excitable,
emotional, or unbalanced individual may not safely be brought into contact with
the great forces working behind and through the angel evolution. Men and
women with extremely practical and controlled minds, possessing also capacities
for idealism and positive imagination, are ideal workers; these types should be
sought for the initiation of schemes where human-angel cooperation is to be
employed.
Though the world at large may deride our aspirations, a growing response is
assured. There exists within the human heart and mind an instinctive attraction
in these directions; it springs in part at least from ancient memories of those
times when angels walked with men, and partly from the natural seer- ship latent
in every human soul.
 CHAPTER 3

THE SECOND MESSAGE

The Angels ask from you, not worship—for that would be inappropriate—but
love; asking only to be allowed to join with you in praise and thanksgiving to
Him Who is the Father of us all, and in adoration of the Supreme Teacher of
Angels and of Men. The power of our prayers will be enhanced by being offered
up with yours; your lives will be enriched by the answer to our common act of
praise. Our sphere of usefulness to God will be enlarged by sharing yours; your
lives will be enriched, your world made glad, by the inauguration of the
Brotherhood of Angels and of Men. The aim of the Brotherhood is to widen the
range of human love by including the angels within its rosy glow, so that the
concept of brotherhood, the keynote of the coming age, shall know no bounds,
but widen to include all living things, mortal and immortal—the dwellers in the
ethereal worlds of air, fire and water—the people of the limitless dominions of
Space.
The time approaches when they will no longer remain invisible to you, for as
you throw open your worlds to them, so will they cease to resist your entry into
theirs; throwing wide their doors they will invite you to pass the portal, offering
you full share of those treasures of incalculable value which they have guarded
so long. It is love that will open the doors; love between yourselves first, so that
you can never misuse the gifts they will bestow; love also for them, your
brethren, to whom your love will give the power to reveal themselves. The
angels send their love and greeting to you, holding out their hands in fellowship,
as bidden by the Lord, Who recently has come again to you and them.
Surrounded by angels, as of old, He comes, and we, His servants, bear His
message of brotherhood and love, “Be of the same mind, one with another, for
there is but one
Life, boundless and inexhaustible, which is the very essence of you all. Go to
the children of men, draw close to them once more, that those days may be
brought back again when angels walked with men. Do this, it is the will of God.”
Having this command laid upon us we come to you, and to many another
listening one, offering you our service and our love, that His will be done.
What will your answer be, men of earth?
We wait on that. We would light a fire in your hearts that you may feel the
glow of the same great flame that burns within us, the flame of divine Life, that
restores as it consumes, ever renewing its fiery power in the lives of those in
whom it burns. That is the meaning of the angel life, this is the secret of the
angel fire, the fire divine which burns continually; it is the flame which leaps
from that immortal spark, our innermost Selves, which springs from the central
fiery heart of the universe—the Spiritual Sun.
All your faculties will be increased, and all your powers enhanced, till life
becomes an ecstasy, till unsuspected beauty reveals itself in everything, till
undreamed-of capacity for love, for life, for happiness, arises within you. Thus
you shall find your way to that Kingdom of Happiness, of ecstasy, of bliss, to
which our Lord in His divine compassion would lead you.
All this, and more, awaits you in the future, a future that shall be near or far
according to your response to Him and to His angel hosts. He desires to open a
new world to you—new yet older than yourselves—to open to you Kingdoms
yet invisible; He will remove the scales from your eyes, and the vision splendid
will be yours.
Come into that Kingdom, the land of immortality in which we dwell, and share
with us the joys which never fail, the splendours of a world where death is
unknown, where separation is not, nor any pain. Let the beauty, the power and
the joy of the vision flow down into your world, healing its distress, relieving its
drudgery, ugliness and vice, that all men may lift up their heads in pride, having
once more become the gods they ought to be.
Begone the sunken eye, the withered cheek, the scowling glance, the shamed
mien, the ugly home. Let Life be beautiful for all, not for the few alone; for He
Who comes, comes to all, and He would remove these dark blots upon your race,
for He sees the God within you struggling to be free.
These lives—dark, drear, dull as the tomb- must be made glad, must be filled
with joy, must be given the freedom which He bids you give.
 Raise up the evolving god; do not press Him down or bury Him deeper and
deeper in the mire of your own selfishness. So shall all be lifted up, a fairer race
shall be born, a nobler type evolve, and a more worthy temple be reared of
human bodies, happy, healthy, strong and free, fit dwellings for the God hidden
within them.
He comes to help you to this end. To help you and Him we come, offering
ourselves to you. We, who have not felt the cramping and deadening weight of
earth, honour you for your great pilgrimage so far from His Face— from Whom
you sprang—so deep into the dense material worlds. Now that your faces are
turned homeward, He bids us sing the welcoming song; He bids us meet you on
the way, and, joining hands with you, lead you more swiftly along the Path of
Return back to His abode, the Dwelling Place of Light.
 CHAPTER 4

THE HIGHEST
There is too much satisfaction with that which is not the highest, and not
enough readiness to aim higher and higher still in all things that are done. Even
in the pleasant talk of friends, there should always be upheld the ideal that
thought and word and deed should be the highest; because this is not so, the keen
edge of heart and mind is blunted, the sense of greatness falls away, lesser things
come into and clog the soul, delaying its progress on the Path. These things
should not be, need not be; even little things are great for those who continually
aspire. Make something great of all things. The walk, the drive, the fireside talk,
all the household ways, all your earthly obligations, your pleasures and your
pains, your strivings and your times of ease—let them be great, the greatest that,
so far, has dawned within you—the highest you can reach.
Let this be the motto for you all—THE HIGHEST—and let all who join our ranks
pledge themselves to that motto. We, too, will pledge ourselves, and every time
this inward pledge is uttered by a man, an angel shall repeat his pledge and bear
it like a torch to add to the great reservoir of power apportioned for our work.
Let each who would so pledge himself, retire into solitude, the private room,
some grassy height, some woodland shade, or, if he needs them not, into the
chamber of his heart. There with fixed purpose let him first meditate, seeking to
penetrate into the depth and meaning of our great ideal; then, having envisaged
it, let him make firm resolve that he will ever strive towards it throughout this
and his future lives; remembering that to the great all things are great.
Thus, perchance, we may remove the blight that threatens your race, the blight
of apathy; in which you are sunk so deep that only wars, earthquakes, fires and
floods, famines and sudden death can stir your somnolence. Your higher selves
—your angel selves—strive continually to awaken you, to send a vision through
your dreams, and here and there a sleeper stirs and stretches, all too often to
return to sleep; your dreams must be disturbed by the force of things external to
your selves. Wars come to rouse you, and you pray to God to save you from
more wars! Pestilence and famine stride hand in hand across your heedless lives,
and only as you see them threatening your repose do you awake, and, for a time,
become your greatest selves. Yet from these, you pray unto your Lord, asking
Him to deliver you! The deliverer from these is with you all the while, it is your
innermost self; but as you will not be aroused by the Self within you, you must
be awakened by the Self without. Know that in wars, plagues, cataclysms, you
see yourselves, the expressions of your soul, striding torch in hand, through the
dormitories in which your bodies lie, to stir you from your sleep, to drive away
the dark shadows of self-satisfaction and content. These other selves of yours
will come again and again until you yourselves banish them for all time. They go
from the nation, from those men, who, answering to THE HIGHEST, live according
to its laws; who seeing the greatest, strive ever to express it, who neither rest nor
sleep, filled with a craving which drives them onwards from peak to peak of the
mountains of the spiritual world. That is the way to release, brothers, and there is
none other. HE who tells you that war may cease by act of law, does worse than
lie; he covers up the truth, so that men, feeling safe, sink back again into their
dreams—and war returns in due season.
In our Brotherhood, we must begin to hold aloft this great idea—THE HIGHEST
—and each must pledge himself that nothing else will satisfy his soul. You must
preach this gospel—that the cause of all things, good and ill, lies within
ourselves, that the good may be made better and the bad disappear, only by
action from within. It is the lives of men you must reform, not their laws; lives
can only change when they conform to THE HIGHEST, instead of trifling with the
lowest.
No man can plead that he does not know these things. Messenger after
messenger has come and spread the truth abroad. It is you who have locked up
such truths in temple, church, and mosque, and taken refuge in the courts of law,
till self-denial is unknown, and is displaced by denial of the Self. Still you laugh
contemptuously, when told that love shall save the world—or purity, or truth, or
law, or sacrifice. You have hardened your hearts; yet He still comes, the
embodiment of love, purity and truth, of law and sacrifice, to teach you once
again the ancient truths, lest war—an even greater war—should take His place as
Teacher of Angels and of Men.
Let this be our motto and our password, the sign by which we know each other
by day and night—THE HIGHEST. Seek an artist friend that he may draw a picture
of a member of the angel host standing upon a globe and pointing to the sky, and
underneath— “THE HIGHEST.” Call it “The Angel of the
Pointing Hand”; make it into badge and talisman, bless it with power and love
and courage to achieve, that all who wear it may be filled with divine discontent
and a craving for THE HIGHEST, a longing for the goal. Learn to make the form in
the mental worlds and fill it with your desire, and send it out to men. Charge it to
the full with your will; call upon an angel to ensoul it with his life, until you fill
the mental world with glowing forms of angel kind which shall call to the mental
selves of men, shall wake them from their sleep. Flood the mental world with
this ideal, the ideal of THE HIGHEST.
 CHAPTER 5

PATIENCE
Can you conceive an eagerness to work, so great that even our bodies seem
near to breaking under its power, yet an eagerness combined with patience that
can wait a thousand years? To that sublime patience you must attain, for within
the quality of patience are enclosed a multitude of virtues, strength to control,
power to restrain, vision of the Plan, knowledge of the real, detachment from
results and coordination of the will, the mind, the body, so that when the time
comes they act as one. Patience of this kind does not extinguish the fire of
eagerness to serve, rather does it glow ever more fiercely within the compression
exercised by will and mind. When at last the order comes, when, after the
passing of an age, the day arrives when the restraints are to be released, then it is
that the power stored up for so long flashes forth through us. We become the
catapults of God.
Now that day has come; stored-up energies, resulting from the power of the
great ideal, have been released into your world. Fear not the result; the end is
sure. Not for nought have your Hierarchy and ours planned, from time beyond
your power to count, ever waiting for the arrival of the day; so I say the end is
sure. Still they plan, for ages yet unborn, great schemes, embodying the divine
Will; in detail, too, down to the angels and the men they choose. What, then, are
we but incidents, straws, blown by the breath of God, except that within those
straws the self-same breath is found, so that breath answers to breath, and His
Will is done.
Remember always that the ultimate source of power is in the idea, the power
we use in manifested worlds is but the force emanating from and the reflection
of the divine Idea. If this be true, then no delay can reduce its potency, nor any
circumstance prevent its ultimate expression. Upon this knowledge should
patience be based.
 CHAPTER 6

PEACE
Peace is an essential principle in nature, not merely a quality to be acquired; it
belongs to the innate essence of all things, and, like love, is a cohesive principle.
Behind all movement there is rest; behind all sound there is stillness; so that
behind the motion and the music of the spheres there is peace—the equipoise of
God. Though all His planets and all His people move, He is motionless, and
nought is there within His wide dominions that can disturb His peace, so firmly
founded. You, too, if you would achieve, must find that peace, that power of
divine equipoise which nothing in the outer world can shake, which no untoward
circumstance can destroy. I would have you turn your thoughts to this great
discovery, the discovery of that within yourselves which is a reflection of the
peace of God. It is not your own, it is not a quality which you will acquire; it is a
power that you will release; it is the gyroscopic centre of your soul. At first it is
like an isolation of the soul, so deep is its stillness, utterly devoid of sound.
The way to this realm of peace lies through the mind, for the roads which lead
towards, its boundaries are paved with thought; over, those roads the soul must
tread. Therefore, by thought you must begin. Think frequently peace; mistake it
not for quiet, nor any condition of external things, however noiseless however
still; you must plunge deeper, into the innermost recesses of the soul, in quest of
the land of peace. It is not of the mind nor of the heart, though the essence of
both is rooted deep within it. Meditate on peace, thus will you pave the road
which you must tread later so that it be smooth and easy for your feet as you
walk and near the frontier, the sense of manifested life will gradually fall away,
you will feel alone. Fear not, 'tis but the aura of the land of peace which stretches
far and wide and meets you on the road; enter it, and let its power strengthen you
for the later stages of the quest; as the stillness deepens around you, welcome it
and let it permeate your soul, till every nerve, every atom, seems to find rest.
Mistake not this deep reflection for the goal itself, as many have done; peace
lies still deeper, the innermost recesses must be explored; even while all nature
seems to pause, and the goal almost to be won, press on your quest. The
drawbridge is down, the portcullis raised; press on, for, compared to the peace
which now awaits you, that which you just have known is as discord and
turmoil, as far from reality as earthly fire is from the spiritual sun, yet related to
it, and therefore to be encountered on the way; it was external peace and not
your own. Pass then through the gates, and be lost in that which is yourself; fall
into the abyss, plunge into the pool, which, though it seems but nothingness, is
everything—the pool of peace.
Think deeply on these words, my brothers, and try the quest. It is part of our
angel discipline, the schooling of the angel hosts; lacking the anchorage which
your earthly bodies give to you, the devas are useless in great tasks till they have
found that stable point within their inmost depths, which serves them, as your
bodies serve your minds, for leverage; lacking flesh, they have to find the
fulcrum deep within. Why should you not find it, too, and, having both the inner
fulcrum and the flesh, preserve that outer poise unshakeable which is the
expression of spiritual peace, the final, deepest point of self, beyond which self
is not?
It was from this source, so deep within, that the power was released which the
raging tempest on the Galilean sea could not gainsay; it was from that land that
He spoke, saying unto wind and wave: “Peace, be still.” Though it is no earthly
peace, it wields a power that all earthly things must own—resistless in its might.
When He gave His peace to His own, saying: “Not as the world giveth, give I,”
He spoke from that same inner land. Thence came also the power which, through
His music, tamed the wildest and most warlike creatures of the Thracian wilds,
which drew down the branches of the trees and held them still, which forced the
lion and the tiger and the snake to lose their fierceness and their lust and become
quiet, for Orpheus sang, “Peace, be still.” And ever, where His presence is, there
is peace—there motion seems to cease.
So, He who lives forever in that land of eternal equipoise, comes bringing
peace, and as He, coming thence, brings peace to the world, so may you—
drawing on the self-same source, the deepest point, the stable point, the point of
rest within yourselves—find peace, and the warfare of your lower selves will
cease. You too must acquire the magic of that far-off land which shall give to
your voice the power to say “Peace, be still.” None living in these outer worlds
can resist that power; the wildest sylph, the fiercest creature of the fire, the
elementals of the storm, the earthquake, the volcano, and the flood, must stay
their mighty onrush, their resistless, vivid play, at the command of him who can
truly say, “Peace, be still.”
This peace is the essence of all beautiful things. The quiet hour, the peaceful
scene, the home fireside, the clasping hands of those who love, the worship of
the devotee, the adoration of the saint, the blessing of the Gods—all these have
as their essence, peace, and without peace their beauty is gone. Therefore, win
peace.
Your peoples have so much which would be beautiful but is not, for want of
peace; you ape the beautiful yet achieve it not, for want of peace; nearly all your
art is spoiled by too much striving and by want of peace. Only the greatest of
your men of fire have truly achieved great art, great in the measure of peace it
enshrines; yet everything that grows—the gem, the rose, the weed, the insect, the
animal, the man—is beautiful. All are the achievements of an art which springs
from peace-like lotus flowers, resting on the surface of the pool.
O, my brothers, if you would but give the world this one message, asking men
to seek peace; not the freedom from the clash of arms, not absence of civil or
industrial strife, not lessening of the claims from man to man, for these are but
the husks, the chaff, which flies into the air at the grinding of the karmic mills. If
you would escape the karmic debt of war, you must lead the souls of men to that
land of spiritual peace, in which to contemplate and find, each for himself, the
Peace Divine.
If you would but emulate the silent-footed devas of the air, who live their lives,
not in soundlessness, but in song; whose every moment is a harmony, whose
every thought paints a bright picture on the canvas of the sky, whose very
heartbeats are whisperings of joy! When you tell men that we come, ask them
this boon in our name—that they will cultivate peace. Life must, indeed, be
motion, and motion sound; but let all the sounds of human life bring harmony,
and let them learn to make their path melodious and sweet. Teach them to listen
to the music of the trees, show them the way firs and pines and beeches live,
swaying to the wind and singing all the time. They have swayed and sung since
Time was; now they are incapable, in any circumstances, of stridency or discord
in their song.
 So near, oft-times, do we come, hoping that you will hear the beating of our
wings, and yet we fail, and often must retire, driven away, almost with horror, at
the sounds and forms emitted by your ways of living. Appeal for the abolition of
every sound which might hurt the ear of a child, in city, in street, in country lane,
in factory, farm, or field, so that gradually you will have removed this
impassable barrier of noise, which you have erected between our world and
yours. Teach your people to cultivate the quiet hour, to learn the joy of peace, the
mood of silent happiness, for these are the obvious ways of human life, these
should be the natural expression of your lives; if you have not attained to these
how can we teach the deeper paths of peace, the superhuman way, how lead you
past your normal selves into the land where God is seen, walking in His garden
of peace?
Inaugurate a great campaign, bid all those who come later to help, that this
great wave of ugliness and violence shall pass, for this chance is an essential
preliminary to the realisation of our mutual ideals. Though ordered by the Prince
of Peace, though filled with the love of the Lord of Love, we cannot come until
you quieten all your lives and listen to our knock upon your door, to our footfall
beside your hearths. Discord and ugliness must vanish from the world; to
remove it is our task and yours—but yours first. Rewards are promised, even at
the beginning of your task, for you shall hear such music, you shall see such
beauty as will exceed your noblest dreams, when we come bearing our gifts to
men—gifts that can be given only to a world ready to receive them, gifts that
cannot be withheld, when once the preparation has been made; for, throughout
all time, these have been the gifts of the angels—music and beauty; every quality
and every movement of the God within the angel finds expression through these.
Love, one for another, between us, shows itself in bursts of song; with us, great
thoughts are symphonies; and, as we answer love to love, and thought to
thought, all the air about us is filled with tones and supertones, with harmonies,
songs, chants and great chorales; not manufactured as something to show our
gifts, but as beauties which cannot be withheld, beauties which spring forth full-
born, natural expressions of our intercourse, our lives of love and labour, in our
own world.
You, too, make pictures every time you think; you, too, make music every time
you feel, and light and colour and form as well; and these things might shine
resplendent and beautiful in your world, the beauty of their music might fill your
ears. These things are all about you, modified, it is true, but you know them not.
You do not live for beauty, your lives are not spent ever listening for a song;
furthermore, you spoil your songs, your forms, your light, by greed and
selfishness and vice. These errors would quickly vanish if you but heard and saw
the monstrous sounds and sights that spring from them.
Seeing all we see, do you wonder that the angels weep, beholding Gods fallen
so low?
 CHAPTER 7

EDUCATION
This is the way of the teacher; first to uplift the soul; second, to expand the
mind; thirdly, to vivify the understanding, and fourthly; to co-ordinate body,
mind and soul.
To teach you, I must first call you up into the land of joy,5 that you may stand
in the presence of knowledge.
Knowledge is truth arranged in sequences; knowledge is truth mirrored in the
human soul; knowledge is the life-aspect of learning— the twain should never be
confused. Knowledge is the synthesis of all that learning gives; knowledge is
unity as it finds expression in the realm of ideas.
Knowledge differs from wisdom. Wisdom ever grows, knowledge is
stationary; wisdom is the self of knowledge, knowledge is wisdom expressed as
ideas; wisdom is innate within the human soul, the human soul must acquire
knowledge. When knowledge is gained, it is no longer required; knowledge is
only useful as a key to unlock the hidden wisdom. Knowledge belongs to the
unreal; wisdom to the real. Knowledge dies, wisdom is eternal; knowledge is the
odour, wisdom is the flower; knowledge is light, wisdom is the sun; knowledge
is the picture, wisdom is the vision, the soul of man is the artist.
To the teacher, the pupil is the artist who will translate wisdom to knowledge
after he has found wisdom through knowledge. The teacher must teach wisdom,
not knowledge. The mission of the teacher is to elevate the pupil, to place him in
the presence of knowledge, that he may reach out his hand to such knowledge, as
he may desire-the teacher watching all the while, guiding the selection,
influencing the expression, of that which is acquired. When the pupil is familiar
with knowledge, the teacher shows him how to use it as a key with which to
unlock the hidden wisdom. As the doors swing wide and wisdom is revealed, the
teacher withdraws; thereafter watches from afar.
 Wisdom cannot be revealed until the soul is lifted up, therefore, let all
teachers-to-be learn first to lift up the souls of men.
Teaching should begin by prayer, so that the pupil may learn to free his soul
from earthly things. Being free, he must mount on wings of prayer, that his soul
may be lifted up. Having lifted him to heights where knowledge dwells, the
teacher should support the pupil, holding him by the hand until he learns the
equipoise of that unaccustomed land. Then, and then only, may the teacher begin
to teach.
There is but one way to teach; that is by sharing, for that is the way God
teaches, and every teacher should be to his pupil as a God. The art of teaching is
the art of God; that is His purpose in His universe, to educate. All teachers
should aspire to be Godlike, for, being Gods in miniature, all their work becomes
divine.
The teachers of a nation should be its noblest sons, its greatest men. They
should learn to elevate their souls, should find those hidden pathways through
the mind which lead from brain to wisdom, from wisdom back to brain. They
should use these daily, till all the ways of flesh, of feeling, thought, ideas and
wisdom, are as familiar lands. The teacher must survey these lands, each in its
turn, until he has distilled the essence of them all, has learned to stand and to be
free in each world. Then, and only then, can he truly educate. Then only can he
guide his pupil’s feet along the path which he has trodden, then leave the pupil
free to use the pathway for himself.
For the teacher, wisdom is the highest; for the pupil, will. The teacher should
not begin to teach until he has touched the highest, lest he should err in the
lowest. But, having learned the secret whereby wisdom is revealed, and having
kept the pathway free, seated in wisdom, he can order all his actions in the lower
world according to wisdom’s decree. Then will he be worthy to teach, for
wisdom cannot err.
With wisdom he will examine his pupil’s body, especially its brain, the organ
with which he is concerned; he will order all the pupil’s earthly life, that brain
and body may be developed to express wisdom; for nothing less should be his
aim. The body must be supple, loose and free; the brain elastic, sensitive,
responsive to what is high, unresponsive to what is low. Carefully, day by day,
nay, even hour by hour, the teacher should watch the growth of the body and of
brain. The earthly life should be suffused continually with joy, he should not
permit even the shadow of a pain; for pain is the teacher of maturity, pain is the
teacher of the pupil’s later years, not of his youth.
The qualities of joy and freedom must be developed to the utmost in the child;
this is essential to ultimate success. Failing this, growth will be warped, body
and brain will harden, the higher faculties be dulled. All the food and clothing of
the child must be light, yet containing also the elements of strength. Purity
should surround him from his birth; all that is gross should be rigorously kept
away. Thus only may the body grow to be light and strong, pure, joyous and
free. Having these, the basic factors of his growth, all else will follow naturally;
virtue will develop, vice will gain no hold.
On these, the teacher’s basic principles, the curriculum should be based.
If the child should err, let the teacher blame himself; he has not taught aright,
he has failed to share; failing to share means that he has not loved. Without love,
no man should begin to teach. As God watches the growth of His universe,
sharing with it His life, His wisdom and His joy, so must the teacher, meditating
continually, sharing his vision and his wisdom with the pupil. As he sees his
many pupils grow in earthly strength and grace, in mental gifts, in heavenly
wisdom, he should pay close attention to the diversities of gifts and character
which each one develops as he grows; for only by close study and wise
discrimination can he select each one and place him in his natural group so that
classes may be formed; for only those be so grouped whose gifts and character
demand a similarity of method.
One of the most difficult and important tasks of the teacher is the grouping of
the pupils in their class. He should not group so much by age or subject to be
taught as by innate character. When thus the proper groups are formed, they
maybe mingled or even interchanged, but in all that affects the close relation
between the teacher and the taught, a proper grouping should be maintained. So
also, in the world of thought and feeling; it is with the highest wisdom that the
underlying bases of the teacher’s art should be applied. When the teacher imparts
knowledge, he should at the same time show the pupil how he may acquire that
knowledge for himself. Thus it is that, when I lift you to the land of joy and
make you free of all its wide domain, I show you also, how to open wide your
eyes, that for yourself you may see; for this is the teacher’s way.
 CHAPTER 8

JOY
I would sing to you of joy, the joy of the Gods as they revel in the land of joy.
The land of joy is the land of dreams, where every dream comes true. Where
every thought and answering thought thrills with joy.
The land of joy is the land of the Gods, there lives the God in man;
For men are Gods, and the Godly part dwells in the land of the Gods.
The land of joy is beyond the mind, through the gates of eternal peace.
Angels share that land with men, and these are the Gods who sing;
Thrills of gladness fill the air, by joy we live and breathe;
Everything there is full of joy, like the bursting buds of spring;
Throughout all the land is the freshness of morn, of dew, of bud, of flower.
Lightly the angels pass on their way, wafted on wings of joy;
Nature wears a perennial smile, a smile that is ever new;
Laughter rings through the woods and dells, for the joy of eternal spring.
All power, all truth, all vision, all work, all life, is expressed in that land in
terms of joy. An effort of will sends a wave of gladness through that land; new
tasks are welcomed with the smile of those who greet their dearest friend. Every
heart and every soul thrills with the dancing gladness of spring; vast choirs of
angels sing songs of joy. Cherubim and Seraphim disport themselves, their
winged faces shining with joy. In that land every thought becomes a poem.
The lower man must join the higher man in the land of joy; the twain must
walk together through its green places. The higher man is
calling, ever calling to the lower: “Come, come into the land of joy.” As his eyes
are opened, splendour on splendour is revealed. The fluting pipes of Seraphim,
the treble songs of Cherubim—those twins sing and play in con- cert in the land
of joy. No earthly eyes can see, no earthly ears may hear, the vision and the
music of this land; no earthly hand of lower man can ever truly write its wonder
and beauty, its ecstasy and thrilling gladness. It is the land where every earthly
happiness finds birth; a single thrill within it gives birth unto a thousand happy
hours in the world below. Its wayside flowers are parents of earth’s most
luscious blooms; its trees, waving in the evening breeze, send divine melodies to
the lower ears of men.
 Springlike freshness of air, lily-scented bowers, oceans wide like mighty
frosted panes, reflecting the noon-day sun, rivers of crystal, streamlets whose
waters are of precious stones, waterfalls and cataracts like broken sun-rays
flashing through a thousand prisms, billowy foam, showers of spray of
diamonds, each drop lighted with an inward sun, tall trees, like stately mothers
of the Gods emerald clad; clouds that are alive and gambol like the lambs as they
float across a sky of sweeping vastness with ever changing hues, lighted as if by
a thousand sunsets; air balmy, buoyant and full of song like the trickling of a rill,
air of particles which constantly explode and shed bright radiance, vitality and
all the fresh odours of spring—of such is the land of joy.
It is a land of fair valleys, towering heights, vast chasms, great precipices,
every rock and stone bejewelled with a thousand gems; earth that is pigment
reflecting the hues of the sky; each particle of earth a separate life, a pulsing,
heart-shaped diamond, translucent, yet full of colour and of light. Every shade
that passes over the sky changes the colour of the earth, is broken to a thousand
hues by myriads of nature’s prisms. There are no deserts there, yet all the land is
like an oasis, a mirage that is true.
In that land, so far and yet so near, the immortal self of man resides. There all
day long he walks, companioned by his angel kin, each ensouled by joy, each its
embodiment. There distance is not, for all the world is at his feet; there no time
passes, for eternity is his. Such is the land wherein the souls of men dwell; such
is man’s spiritual home.
Though I speak of land, of river, sea and sky, of trees that wave majestically, of
precipices and glade, of mountain-top and field, it is but the essence of these
things, and not their form, which compose the varied landscape of the land of
joy. For it is the land of light, where all things are of light; there is no form that
you would recognise as form; yet form is known through cognizance of the
essence of all form. Beauty gives ecstasy, the answering thrill of joy, yet it is not
beauty’s form but beauty’s self we see. In this world of eternal gladness, there
are no words, for the soul of men and angels have no need of words, nor are
there thoughts, for thoughts are but divisions of ideas, as words are but divisions
of thoughts. Here division cannot be, for the land of joy is unity made manifest,
yet not in form.
Unity is the basic law of the land of joy. All the knowledge that men acquire
by thought is here, without the need of thought; all the deepest love they ever
feel is here, universally shining, not from a centre or a part, but implicit
throughout. The music that you know by thought, by feeling and by sound is a
faint and far off echo of its universal music. Before this music could find true
expression in the lower worlds, every atom of the worlds of thought, of feeling
and of flesh, would have to learn to sing, so that there would be no room at all
for anything save music; even the interstices between the particles which build
the form would be filled with song. Before the lower man could hear the
wondrous sound, he must be built anew, of singing atoms, so that he could hear
the atom’s universal song. Yet, even then, for him the vision and the sound of the
land of joy would be afar off; for in that land, thought, love, beauty and music
are one and indivisible, interchangeable, each instinct with the other; inseparable
is this four-fold life-force, yet one.
Every human ideation in the lower worlds is here a living thing, completely
comprehended in a flash in all its possibilities, from birth to ultimate expression
and full maturity, and beyond that to the fading of the power, even to its death.
Birth, maturity, death, here the three are known as one. In this land where joy
reigns, dwell the ideations of the universe; they are the essence, distilled drop by
drop from the consciousness of God; here, the immortal self of man sheds upon
the lower man the odours of those precious essences, the scents of those
perfumes. As the lower man, in world of thought, breathes their delicious scent,
a system of philosophy is born, a symphony formed, a mighty flood of genius
released.
The creative fire which drives the artist on, is fed from the petals of the flowers
from which these perfumes are distilled, for earthly flowers are but the solid
embodiment of universal ideations. In the land of joy there is but one perfume—
the essence of every odour of the world below, containing all. Angels descending
to the lower worlds where heavenly joy will one day reign, bear in their hands,
censers, exhaling perfumes from above, and, as they fly, they swing them,
pervading the world of thought and feeling with their power. As the thinking and
feeling selves of men breathe in the scented power, great deeds of heroism and
love are born in worlds of flesh. The mother clasps the babe more closely to her
breast, ready to give her life for it, if need be; the slave of housework toiling
with rebellious heart, seeing before her a life-time’s drudgery, takes heart anew;
sees husband tired, sees children sick, yet drudges on. Round her the angels
gather, and flood her with their perfume; rebellion passes, peace comes, in the
morning she wakes with courage all renewed, to continue the hourly heroism of
her daily life. Of that heroism the angels sing, and the song is heard in the land
of joy; and the immortal self smiles, knowing that the time shall quickly come
when the lower and the higher shall be one, knowing that his earthly pilgrimage
shall yield most precious fruit, that his earthly “son” shall come home, laden
with gifts, gifts that will add new splendour, new gladness and new power to the
ecstasy by which he finds expression in the land of joy.
To every man and woman in every walk of life in the lower worlds, the angels
come, bearing their perfume, the aroma of eternal ecstasy. They would waken in
the hearts of every man, a craving for that scent, would give to men the
knowledge that they have a heavenly home, would show them in the mirror of
the mind the reflection of their heavenly self—the vision of their own
immortality.
This is the mission, also, of every teacher among men, every preacher, healer,
sage, artist, scientist, statesman and king. All have as their mission if they but
rightly understood it, to reveal to man his own inherent splendour, to lead him
through the sorrows of his earthly life back to his spiritual home, the land of joy.
 CHAPTER 9

VISION
All labour should be performed in the light of vision, and none undertaken
until vision has been achieved. However well plans may be laid, they will fail
unless they are based upon vision. Vision is relative, and a question of degrees. It
is not fixed, but changes as the minutes pass and must therefore be renewed
constantly. Vision is the contact of the small self with the great Self. It is the
knowledge of divine ideas.
Before the birth of stars, before the growth of worlds, came vision—before all
things manifest and unmanifest is vision. Vision comes before the first act of
God; it is the life of the unmanifest, and the world in which it dwells. Vision
reveals the plan; is the essence of the real, that from which it sprang, and that by
which it grew, that by which its ultimate expression is achieved. Vision regulates
the march of the spheres, guides the universe, rules the Cosmos; behind all the
multitude of stars and worlds, throughout the infinities of space is vision. If you
delve into the innermost heart of God, you will find Him seated in the midst of
vision—vision which is the heart of the real; from His vision proceeds the real,
and from the real the unreal.
Vision passes to manifestation through the unmanifest, and if you would
escape the confines of the universe, seeking the Cosmos, searching for the
Absolute—what you will find is vision: so vast, so all-embracing, so infinite,
that to you it will appear as darkness, darkness from which you will shrink; a
darkness and a silence so profound as to exclude all possibility of light and
sound, a stillness so absolute as to exclude the possibility of motion.
Such is the vision of the Absolute. Your wings may not carry you across its
wide spaces; you cannot fall into its dark depths, your eyes cannot penetrate its
utter blackness, wings, eyes and voice serve you no longer, you must turn
backward, craving for sound and light and motion. Yet that which to you is
positive negation, is the vision from which all universes spring. Descend, then,
once more, to your own world, finding there a reflection of the darkness you can
comprehend, for even as you gaze into its depths, vision will come, and you will
know all that has been, is, and is to be—the vision of the Now, that which is
behind eternity.
No man possesses it, no ruler, even of systems or of worlds, can claim it for
their own, since they themselves are but the shadows appearing within its dark
depths. Yet it is not evanescent, nor aerial, nor ethereal, nor does it ever change;
IT IS.
The highest point within you is but a reflection of that vision; every cell in
every world is ordered by it. You and I and all that live are ordered by that vision
in our enfolding and unfolding. It is not God, for God Himself, whether He be
man, angel, world, or ruler of worlds, or even ruler of rulers of worlds, must
conform to it. Whence it came is not known, nor ever could be known, for it is
behind all knowledge, even of the Supreme. It is at once apex and base, and
sides of the pyramid of all things manifest and unmanifest. When men, angels,
worlds, and rulers of worlds, pass from manifestation to the unmanifest again,
vision remains; nor is it changed in its varying decrees.
So, my brothers, in all things let us seek the vision. Whenever our eyes rest
upon a form, let us seek its vision; and when we hear a sound, or see a light, or
grasp an idea, or even for a brief space touch reality, let us remember that behind
all these there is vision, and, remembering, bend our powers with tireless search,
to find it; since when it is found, the key of knowledge is revealed. It is not here,
nor there, nor anywhere, but everywhere. When you gaze on beauty, you gaze
upon the Self, and when you gaze upon the Self you see yourself; and behind the
greater and the lesser selves is vision. The vision that you have, the dreams of
future lives, the splendour of great plans, the inward urge to tread the path, to
find the goal, the craving of your hearts to make a perfect world, to heal the sick,
to appease all pain, to annihilate the ignorance of man—the vision of all this in
you, in a faint reflection of the vision seen by That which is the summation of all
that is. For behind That too is vision.
There is a graded order, including all visions, great and small. Remember this,
and ever seek to test your own small share, raising it stage by stage through the
graded orders which lead from the unreal to the real, and from the real to vision.
Just as no vision you can have is comparable to that of the ruler of your worlds,
so is His vision not to be compared with that from which it springs. In all your
lives, in all the worlds, seek vision. Behind the atom and the gem, behind the
growing plant and mighty tree, behind the fawn, the lion and the tiger too,
behind the angel and the man, behind archangels and Solar Lords—is vision;
until you have found it your soul will not find rest. Sight, even mental sight, is to
it as the ideas of a world to the infinitude of ideations behind all worlds. Yet
sight is the instrument by which it may be known; for there is a graded order of
sight, a stairway of vision, winding in a never- ending spiral through all worlds
and through all space; somewhere, on one step of that infinitely splendid spiral
way is physical sight; next above is mental sight, the vision of the mind, and,
beyond that, spiritual sight, which leads to universal sight and thence to Cosmic
sight and, beyond that, unknown sight—unknown save that there is no end, that
somewhere in that unknown infinitude the highest and the lowest meet. There is
nought separating the highest sight from the lowest, nor are they different save
as they show themselves in each individual soul.
This is the starting point for every quest, that, inasmuch as it can show itself
through us, everything is ours; for within man too, that mighty spiral can be
found, not of him, but passing through him, winding its way from below,
entering his feet, as it were, and winding through him till it passes out above his
head into his deeper self. Through all things these spirals pass, up them all things
must climb within themselves. These lesser spirals are, to the mighty curves of
the Cosmic stairs, as are its circular reflections to the rainbow— not the rainbow
itself, but expressions of its light. Behind the lesser and the greater curves is
vision—vision of the spiral whole.
 CHAPTER 10

THOROUGHNESS
If you find and tread this pathway, see that everything you do is done with
thoroughness and efficiency. Absence of thoroughness is a denial of divinity. As
divinity is implicit throughout the universe, so should thoroughness be implicit
throughout your work. Set a standard for yourselves. Absence of thoroughness
means loss of force, since without it no work can be clear-cut in its outlines,
finished in its expression. Work should be regarded as a vessel containing force;
the force of the idea behind it. Thoroughness gives to the vessel a perfect outline.
Where the outline of a form is perfect, there is no loss of force. Work should be
regarded as a chalice held up to the mind, that through the mind, the power of
the idea of which the work is the ultimate expression, may descend into it. If the
work is not thorough, the chalice will be malformed, the wine spilled; therefore
work always with thoroughness. So God works throughout His universe, in
which there is not even the smallest part which does not bear the impress of His
mind. Nothing, however minutely small, is overlooked; nothing, however great,
that is not completely pervaded by and held within the grasp of His mind. He
makes of His universe a perfect chalice. Under His control no force is ever
wasted. The cup of His work, full to overflowing, never overflows. So also His
ministers work, the dual hierarchies of archangels and perfected saints, His Holy
Ones, His right hand and His left.
The only ideal for which man may worthily strive is that of joining the rank of
the ministers of God, whether of human or of angel kind. That ideal can only be
achieved by successful imitation of Their methods. The keynote of Their work is
thoroughness; let it be the keynote of yours. Without it the highest cannot be
achieved. If your work concerns the details of life, work with infinitely careful
attention to detail; if you deal in broader outlines, in wider sweeps, plan with an
equal thoroughness. Thus will your work embody the power of the idea upon
which it is based; thus you will achieve success.
 It is essential that the idea should be true, that is, an expression of the divine
idea. Then it will be a source of power, and will give a power, a dynamic energy
to the work which is its ultimate expression, raising it to heights worthy of a
worker who aspires to serve as the hand of God. The idea represents the head;
the worker, the hand of God.
On this conception base all your work. Thus you will achieve greatness, thus
you will live according to the highest, thus truth will be yours, thus you will
enter the land of joy, ever to live therein, for joy and work are synonyms in the
land of joy. There is no joy without work; all work is joy; therefore, my brothers,
when you work, remember joy. Try to make of your world a reproduction of the
land of joy. Keep joy uppermost; flood your house with joy, your garden, too.
Let joyousness pervade your neighbourhood. Preach, teach, inculcate joy, set it
upon high, hold it up before the eyes of men, become yourselves its
embodiments. Thus will you bring the sense of the land of joy even to the earthly
hearts and minds of men.
Cease to divide your world and work into compartments; train yourselves to
see in every- thing an expression of the One. Practise the discovery of
synonyms, play at matching them. Do not pass from work to play, from play to
prayer, from prayer to worship in your Church, from Church to recreation; do all
things as from a centre from which they are seen as one, as indeed they truly are.
Thus will you give a new meaning to life. Above all things else this is the need
of your race.
You have lost the sense of unity; you are conquered by the delusion of
diversity; you are enslaved by the apparent separateness of things. So you have
lost the meaning and the true vision of life. That vision must be recovered before
any advance can be achieved. The keynote of the true vision of the meaning of
life is unity in diversity; therefore, you must also teach unity.
Unity is the most intangible of all the attributes. Seek to grasp it in the lower
world and it will evade you; therefore, you must rise above diversity, beyond
form, past ideas, even leaving the land of joy behind you since joy is an idea.
When the last vestige of an idea has been emptied from your soul, unity can be
found.
 CHAPTER 11

UNITY
As there is a land of joy, so also there is a world where diversity is not, where
there is unity alone. It is higher than the land of joy, for joy is the land of
universal ideas, and unity is behind ideas. You cannot speak with any truth about
this land, for words are diversities. Therefore may that land be named by one
word alone; it is the land of unity. Not only is there no need for other words,
there are no other words, for the one word “unity” expresses the whole. To
analyse is to lose it; to synthesise is to lose it; unity cannot be analysed or
synthesised; it is one.
What use, then, in the lower worlds? This, that you should obtain the flavour
of it. The flavour of unity can be tasted by the mind, can even be expressed in
action as mutual endeavour. Wherever there is mutual endeavour in the lower
worlds, there men have caught the flavour of unity. In the higher worlds, above
the mind, nought else exists, for they are closer to the world of unity; unity is
their very life. Of it, perhaps, one sentence may be truly said; it is the
embodiment of the will of God. Of that resistless will, no man living in the lower
worlds may know. That it brought all things forth, that it holds all things in
existence, that is the driving power behind all life—these may be known; but
they are its attributes and not the will Itself; by will a man must rise through
thought, through the land of ideas, even through unity, to the very Self. Then he
may know the will of God.
This is a road which every man may take immediately, a road which one day
every man will take irrevocably. If he would shorten his sojourn in the worlds of
form, if his soul is satiated of form and separateness, then let him return: let him
set forth upon the road by which he came, the ancient road, the well- worn road,
the road which so many of his race and ours have trodden. This road is at his
feet; let him set them thereon. It passes through his heart; he must pay toll with
his heart’s blood. It leads through his mind; he must be ready to lay aside his
mind. Then he will find the bridge, the bridge so difficult to cross, for the way is
very narrow here, but every step he takes widens it.
Upon the approaches to the bridge the human race is standing today.
The next stage in the evolution of the human mind will lead to the crossing of
the bridge; it leads from the concrete to the abstract, from thought to idea, from
separateness to union, from form to formlessness, from the impermanent to the
permanent, from the mortal to the immortal, from the illusory to the actual, from
the temporal to the eternal, from that which dies to that which is undying, from
the natural man to the spiritual man, from the Not-Self to the Self. It is the bridge
which all saints have crossed; it is the dividing line between spirit and mind. It is
not a place; it is a state; it is not external; it is within.
After the bridge has been crossed, places disappear; only states of
consciousness remain. He who would cross must leave himself behind; first,
because no separated self can enter the state of union with the One; second,
because the self must remain in lower worlds, as messenger and ambassador
between the two lands on either side of the bridge. Having paid toll with the
blood of the heart, having made ready to lay his mind aside, let the brave pilgrim
step boldly on to the bridge; immediately he will find himself on the further side.
The bridge will not bear him standing; only as he moves across it may he make
use of its support. Having crossed, he finds himself in the land of joy, where pain
is forever left behind, where parting is unknown, where knowledge dwells. He
has reached the first resting place. Here he will find peace; here he will renew
his courage and his strength, for the succeeding stages of his pilgrimage; here he
will survey the road along which he has passed; here past and present will
become one; here he may estimate the future and collect the many streams of
energy that he has liberated in the past, and bind them into one. He will now
begin to direct this single stream of power; he will float no longer upon its
waves, at the mercy of the current, henceforth he will take control of himself.
Knowing the past, he will possess the future. Here he will gather together the
products of his many lives; and will assess their value; here, he will balance
causation and effect; here, he begins to be the ruler of them both, knowing them
as one; here, he sums up into a whole the zodiacal experiences of his many lives.
Thus, having crossed the bridge, will he live, thus will he labour, knowing his
lower self (the man that he has left behind in worlds of form below the bridge) as
his instrument. As instrument, henceforth, he must employ the lower man; upon
mind, feeling and body he must play at will, render them silent at will, deprive
them of all self-initiated volition, teach them to answer to his gentlest thought,
develop to the full their automatism, so that they labour in the worlds of form as
perfectly as if he himself employed them.
That portion of himself which he sent down, clothing it in form that it might
command form, he now withdraws, leaving the form bereft of self, nought but an
instrument. Later, he will withdraw still further; thus it is of very great
importance that from the outset the form should be controlled, perfected, trained,
ready to be laid aside at will, according to his need of freedom in the higher
worlds, ready to be resumed and to serve with absolute efficiency. This is his
duty in the world of form.
He will do his work with ease, because henceforth he works from above. No
longer is a stream of thought or a rising feeling, or a craving of the flesh,
associated with himself. He knows them as the not-self, repudiates their claims,
and rules thought, feeling and flesh with his liberated will. They are but the
brush with which he paints, in lower worlds, the vision which is his in worlds
beyond the bridge. As pencil, he sharpens them, that he may draw truly the
pattern he will weave upon the web of time and space, those illusory rulers of the
worlds below.
These are the lessons he must learn ere once more he can take the road by
which he shall attain liberation from the domain of time, space and form. He
takes his bodies one by one, and perfects them, as a mechanic sharpens and
adjusts his tools, that they may give him perfect service, never failing him in any
task to which he sets his hand. The body must be made pure, light, responsive,
accurate and controlled; it must be at ease. Through every nerve, sinew and
muscle, through every organ, through flesh and skin and bone, there must be
ease—perfect poise—utter restfulness. He must preserve his vital force as his
most precious jewel in the lower world. Without it, the finest body will be
useless; with it, all things may be done. It is the life force of the form through
which he himself is immanent.
He will only use that portion of his body which the immediate task demands;
the remainder will be at rest, acting as a reservoir of vital force. Thus will he
gain health, thus develop the special kind of strength which he will need in order
to manifest, through the form which he maintains in worlds below, the vision
and the power which he has won beyond the bridge. Thus will the pencil point
be sharp, thus will he ensure against error, through failure, of the instrument.
This work will not be new, for, having glimpsed the vision of the land beyond
the bridge for many lives before he crossed it, he has been preparing himself
with such knowledge and power as he could command, while imprisoned in the
lower worlds. His real, immortal self, with whom he is now united and
identified, influenced him continually by brooding and suggestion, by
atmosphere, by vision and by dream, so that he might prepare.
His feelings and thoughts he cultivates and refines, making them responsive
only to the higher, eliminating all that which could respond to the lower. Having
thus erected and perfected the downward pointing pyramid, he proceeds to the
decoration and perfection of the higher, so that he may be ready for the next
stage of the journey.
Thus, and thus alone, may lower man, in lower worlds, become regenerate.
This is the meaning of the new birth. Man must die to his lower self in order that
he may find new birth in the higher. As in earthly death, he finds rebirth into the
worlds of feeling and of thought, so in this withdrawal of himself from the
sovereignty of form, he may be said to die. He is not laid in any grave, nor does
his body disappear before the eyes of men, yet he truly dies. This is the meaning
of the crucifixion—the death, essential to birth. Every man must tread the road
the Saviour trod.
There is a cyclic order in this birth and death. The crucifixion at the end of one
cycle, leads to birth at the commencement of the next. In never-ending spirals
the great drama must be repeated, man ascending ever higher as he enacts that
drama. It may well be called a crucifixion, for death upon the cross of material
worlds must be repeated day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, by him
who would tread the Path.
Let no man think that he can hide behind a text, or take one step upon those
spiral stairs by trusting in the sorrows of another, however great. It is this
delusion which has delayed the progress of the western world: that by the
suffering of another, his sins, however he indulge, may be forgotten; that by
bathing in another’s blood he can find the feet of God. Such teachings may bring
comfort to the mass, for behind them there is a truth, however much distorted;
but he who would truly save the mass must leave the mass behind; relying on the
strength of his inherent divinity alone, he must find and tread the path.
When the great resolve is once born within his heart, when once the first step
has been taken, the help of many Saviours will be his, and with him They will
freely share Their blood. This is the true Atonement, the at-one-ment which one
day he must learn. They, the Liberated Men, the Great Ones of the earth; the
perfected saints, the Holy Ones of God; the
Guides and Masters of great hosts of angels; the Hidden Rulers of the world;
the never- sleeping Watchers; They, Whose hands are never tired yet are ever full
of labour for the world; Whose eyes are filled with pity, power and love, and
infinite compassion— They stand, order upon order, living in realms beyond the
land of peace and joy, resting in perfect unity with Him from Whom They
sprang. They and Their angel hosts welcome the pilgrim; They send him
strength, and cheer and comfort in his trials; They lend him angels to guide him
on the Path. They smile upon his every fall, knowing that Their own
achievements grew largely from their falls; They hide his eyes from the radiance
of his own successes lest pride should rob him of humility. If from Their
splendid heights, it were possible that They could feel a touch of fear, that fear
would be for him who, essaying the path, has not yet died to pride.
Aided by the light from These, his great fore-runners, having cast off
ignorance and the superstition of the mass, strong in the strength of his divinity,
the pilgrim climbs the hill, learning continually to die, voluntarily crucifying
himself in worlds of form, that he may be born in formless worlds. He mortifies
his flesh, but not in hermit’s cave nor monkish cell, not by the scourge or shirt of
hair, not by penances that destroy the fair beauty of the flesh; he mortifies
himself by mind and will; his asceticism is of self-restraint in everything; his
penance is the sacrifice of everything which would hinder his progress on the
path; yet he knows no torture, and seldom, in his early days, anguish of soul.
Though thus he dies continually, and suffers all the pangs of death, he is not
miserable. He is filled with joy, for he knows that every pang he feels, that every
nail or spear that pierces him, liberates more power. As, from his wounds, his
blood flows down upon the world below, more blood flows in.
Thus he learns to know the mystery of the wounded hands and feet and side.
He knows that only when his hands are pierced with nails can he reach out and
save the world;
 that only when his body is bowed beneath the cross can he bear its weight, and
tread its road; only when he wears the crown of thorns can the kingly power
emanate from him; he knows that only when his side is pierced, only when the
soldier’s spear (symbolical of strife and separateness and pain) has opened his
heart, can he pay toll that he may pass along the road; that having given of his
life’s blood, he draws ever nearer to the land of joy where strife and separateness
and pain can touch him no more, and, in the very act of giving, he hears the echo
of the angels’ voices singing in that land. Through his darkness and his pain,
there comes a gleam of light, as from a candle burning in the window of his
spiritual home.
So, ever, as he dies, is crucified in the worlds of form, men marvel at his
fortitude; that even while he suffers, he smiles; that even in the darkness of his
agony, his eyes are bright. Men do not, cannot, know that he hears the music and
sees the vision of the higher world, and that, by this music and joy, his woe is
overcome. Though the path is called the path of woe, it also may be called the
path of joy. This should be added: that the joy is greater than the woe, the peace
greater than the strife, the growing power greater than the weariness of pain, the
light greater than the darkness. The moon it is which sets, but already upon his
face are the first gleams of the rising sun.
Thus have I tried to tell the story of immortal man, who voluntarily submitted
to the imprisonment of form, the deadening weight of flesh, that he might learn
to master form and flesh. Having endured imprisonment of flesh for many lives,
through many centuries, he now seeks to harvest all his gains. To do this he must
disentangle his immortal part from the mortality which it wore, he must change
the habit of a thousand lives and free himself from form. The Saviour named
him Prodigal.
So he treads the path, seeking ever to beautify, to cultivate and refine his
vehicles, his instruments, that, after he has died to them and died to their control,
and won his birth in other worlds, he may use and find in them a many-sided
diamond, which he may render still more highly polished, whose many facets he
may now perfect, that through its translucent beauty, the new glory which is his
may shine forth for the helping of his fellow-men. Such is his attitude to body
and to form; ever he regards them as matter to be perfected and beautified.
This is the picture of his inner and his outer growth. Within he treads the path,
finds the bridge that leads him from the mind, crosses it, and is identified with
that of which he is a fragment and knows himself as an incarnated part, a
separated gleam of light, from worlds of light, illuminating a portion of the
world below. That part has now become the whole, that beam has been
withdrawn into the parent light. The outer labour of the pilgrim on the path
consists of polishing the matter which he has worn since, as a separated part, he
came forth, of imparting to it a perfect translucency.
This is the meaning of spiritual death and spiritual birth. It is not a death as
man would reckon death, for the form remains, apparently it lives and breathes.
Symbolically, he truly dies, for he withdraws himself from form. Between the
death which men call death and the death symbolical, there is this difference:
that in the death of mortal flesh, the flesh disintegrates, while in the death
symbolical, it is still preserved. This death refers more to the power of the form,
and its control of life; to that he truly dies. In mortal death there is a moment
when men can say “he lives,” a moment when men say “he dies,” a moment
when men say “he is dead.” But in the death of him who is reborn, death is
continuous. This is a mystery which only he who treads the path can solve. If
you would understand it, seek the road.
 CHAPTER 12

THE PATH
What reasons may be given to him who asks: “Why should I tread the Path of
Woe?” There is but one reason, but it is all sufficient—for love’s sake. For it is
love which brings about the first murmurings of discontent within the heart of
man.
The value of his pilgrimage, the estimation of its worth, these may be
calculated in terms of power to love. There comes a time in the long series of his
many lives, when love demands an answer and assumes control, when man
surrenders to the power of love. Love floods his being, fills his heart, finds an
entrance into every nook and cranny of his soul. In him love’s self becomes
incarnate. Therefore, he can no longer deny love. Thus, filled with love, he looks
upon the world with its eyes, sees the whole of manifested life in no other terms.
Being himself filled with love, he sees in all things an expression of love. Love
is his cosmos, love is his Self. Thus illumined, thus suffused, he sees the sorrows
and suffering of the world, he hears the cry of every soul in pain, the tears of
sorrow fall upon his heart and burn like drops of liquid flame.
The birds, the beasts, the fishes of the sea, find entrance to his heart; he feels
their anguish as they die, slaughtered, butchered by those who know not love.
Seeing all this, feeling it deep within his soul, he rises up to save, and finds that
he is powerless, that he cannot stay the hand of cruelty, he cannot heal the gaping
wound. He has neither the knowledge nor the power to take away the agonies of
animals and men which tear his heart. Then conscious of his impotence, so great
is the anguish of his soul, that the resolve that he will achieve both knowledge
and power is born.
Thus it is he finds and sets his feet upon the path. If he ever should falter, love
drives him on; if, in his weakness, he turns back, love bars the way; if he would
stray down the pleasant by-ways of self-delusion and self-indulgence, love turns
him back. If, with dead arguments and lifeless theories, philosophers bid him
stay, if they would close his ears to cries of pain, love sounds her mighty trumpet
driving away harsh theories and philosophies, burns within him so fiercely that
he can rest no more. If ever, while he walks, he deludes himself with dreams,
love awakens his soul, shatters his dreams; demands action. Should he stumble,
love sustains him; at every milestone love smiles on him, taking stronger hold
upon his heart.
Early upon the path, he finds that in the near approach of love are knowledge
and power. He stretches forth his hand to help and sees the wound heal. Filled
with a new joy, the joy of love expressed, he journeys on. Should one ask of him
the reason of his pain, the reason is revealed by love. Thus knowledge grows, the
knowledge of the cause of human woe. Then it is he hears love speak:
“Knowledge and power must be wedded within you ere you can heal the sorrows
of the world.”
Thus love puts into his hands the standard he must bear, and writes the name
of God upon it. Men see him as he passes on his way, they see the standard in his
hand, but striving to read the Name, they see only power, knowledge, love. They
cannot read the Name of God; they only see the armour, the sword and the shield
which God lends to His son who journeys home.
Thus armed and equipped he crosses the bridge; hears the angels’ welcoming
songs; finds the source of knowledge, power and love; drinks his fill of these
and, being filled, knows himself divine. Godlike in his knowledge, power and
love, he turns to heal and save the world which he has left behind. There is no
pain which does not answer to the magic of his touch, no thirst that cannot be
assuaged by his power, no evil that his knowledge cannot dissipate, no form of
life, however high or low, in which he cannot see himself. He heals by
identification. He drives away pain because he is pain’s self, because pain is but
the darker side of joy; being joy, he also is pain.
By leaving the world of men, he becomes their redeemer. This is his prize; this
the goal; for this he started out upon the path. In the act of redeeming, he knows
the greatest of all joys—the joy of love completely expressed.
You who read, have you not felt within your hearts the sorrows of the world?
Have its cries of woe hurt your heart or do you still sleep? You may sleep for a
while, but the time will come when love will take you by the hand and set your
feet upon the path. It is because of this that I have come, speaking in the name of
your angel self, seeking to show you the road, to tell you of its splendour, of the
glories yet to be revealed. Your own soul will awaken you to knowledge of your
own divinity, you will arise and make of your earthly self a temple which shall
be a worthy dwelling-place for your other self, the Self which is divine. The
shrine of that temple must be within your heart; within that shrine, the Christ in
you must come to dwell. For this reason, see to it that the temple of your body,
the vehicle of your life, be beautiful, that through its beauty the splendour of the
God within may be revealed.
 CHAPTER 13

METHODS OF INVOCATION
The ceremonies consist of a morning invocation to the Angels and an evening
service of thanksgiving.
For this purpose the following suggestions are made: a shrine, in or out of
doors, should be set apart and, where possible, used exclusively for this purpose;
it should be consecrated by an appropriate ceremonial, which would have as its
object the invocation of the power of the angels and the establishment of a centre
and atmosphere in which contact and cooperation would be possible. The initial
ceremony could be performed by a priest of the religion of the country, who is
sympathetic to the ideals expressed, or by an occultist possessing the necessary
knowledge and power.
In the east, should be an altar upon which worshippers should place (a)
fragrant flowers, gathered freshly each day, (b) religious symbols, (c) a picture or
statue of the Founder of the religion, (d) holy water, (e) incense, and (f) candles.
The minimum—where other things are unobtainable—would be flowers and a
single object of beauty.
Essential conditions are complete cleanliness, an atmosphere of utter purity,
and a single desire for mutual cooperation of angels and men for the helping of
the world.
Joy, simplicity and beauty should characterise all the ceremonies, preparations
and arrangements.
All participants in the ceremonies should be clothed in simple robes of colour
corresponding to that of the group of angels whose aid is being invoked; all
undergarments should be white. One of the participants should officiate and act
as link between the two corresponding groups of angels and men.

GROUPS OF ANGELS COLOURS TO BE WORN

Guardian angels of the home ... Rose and soft green
Healing angels ... Deep sapphire blue
Angels of maternity and birth ... Sky blue
Ceremonial angels ... White
Angels of music ... White
Nature angels ... Apple-green
Angels of Beauty and Art ... Yellow (the wisdom colour)

Prayers may be offered for particular purposes. Where more than one group of
angels is invoked, the officiant for each should be robed in the appropriate
colour and perform the appropriate ceremony.
PROCEDURE. Once begun the services should be maintained regularly and are
best performed immediately after the morning and evening ablutions. The
presence of children—who should wear white—is desirable.
All should enter in procession, the children leading, the officiants last.
The children should sit in a half-circle, facing the altar, in front of the elders,
leaving a passage in the centre for the officiants.
Where very young, aged, sick people or pregnant women are present, they
should be placed nearest the altar, the rest, with the exception of children,
standing in straight rows behind them.
Each officiant, one for each group of angels, will advance to the altar in turn,
repeat the appropriate invocation, during which he will lift the bowl of flowers
above his head, following them with his eyes. When taking his special part in the
ceremony the officiant should use all his powers of thought and will to summon
the angels. (The measure of effectiveness in all ceremony is proportionate to the
amount of knowledge, will and thought- power employed by the officiant.)
All present will join with him, to the utmost of their capacity, following
intently the meaning of the prayer.
No undue physical strain should be produced by the effort made, but
ceremonies should not be allowed to degenerate into mere repetition of formulas.
At the same time, an intense feeling of joy in, and a sense of anticipation of, the
companionship of the angels must be steadily maintained.
At the evening service of thanksgiving, after the prayer, let the officiant hold
up the bowl of flowers, offering their beauty and their sweetness to the angels,
and pouring through them deep love and gratitude from his heart towards the
angel hosts. Let all present similarly pour out their love through the officiant and
the flowers; then sit in silence, giving thanks and making their private prayers;
then go direct to bed.
When it is not possible for the young, the sick, the aged or the pregnant to be
present, the group or a part of the group should go straight to their room from the
shrine, bear- ing a second bowl of flowers, which has been standing on the altar
during the ceremony.
Then, facing the patient, the particular ceremony required should be repeated
—invoking angel guardians for the young and aged, building angels for the
pregnant, healing angels for the sick. Where only one room is thus visited, the
bowl of flowers should be left on a small shrine in the room; where a number of
visits are called for, the flowers should be distributed among the rooms, placed
in vases on the respective shrines. Where an appropriate object of beauty cannot
be procured for these shrines, flowers will suffice.
At risk of repetition it should be made clear that this conception must be
preserved in its simplest possible form, entirely free from all sensationalism or
elaborate ceremonial; nor should any attempt be made to obtain close personal
contact with individual angels, or to employ them from motives of personal gain,
interest or curiosity. Such endeavours would almost invariably lead to disaster,
and must be rigorously avoided. It should be as natural to work with angels as
with human beings, or as with domestic animals; and qualities of SIMPLICITY,
PURITY, DIRECTNESS and IMPERSONALITY must characterise all who would
successfully take part in such endeavours.
A knowledge and appreciation of the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom should
make depression and similar moods impossible. Complete confidence in the
Divine power and Divine justice characterise the angel hosts, and if men would
work with them they, too, must attain those qualities. The ability to judge the
importance of a temporary circumstance by seeing its relation to the whole, to
the completed scheme, must be developed, so that it becomes impossible to be
unduly elated, cast down, or overcome by any particular event or succession of
events. The power to work on, with utter faith, with complete certainty, in spite
of the apparent failure of any particular endeavour, must be sought; for thus the
angels work. Christians would do well to remember and repeat frequently the
Collect for the day of St. Michael and All Angels.
Let me picture to you what may still come, give you a vision of that which lies
ahead.
Picture a vast plain, in a far clime, under a clear sky, where thousands and
thousands of your people gather—and, with them, the sick, the aged, the young
—and form, in great figures on the plain, stars, triangles, pentagons, invoking us,
until, descending to your earth, we come, visible, as robed in flesh—a glorious
descent into your midst. Not we alone, but, with us, members of your race,
coming from the ranks of Those to whom earth can teach no more. There we
come among the multitude, to heal, to guide and to inspire, and, ere we depart,
with promise of early return, to pray with them, uplifting all to the feet of Him
Who is the Father of us all, our Logos and our Lord. In every land, to every
people, thus might we come.
 INVOCATIONS AND PLAYERS

Mo r nin g Invocations

DEVAS OF CEREMONY
Hail, brethren of the devic hosts!
Come to our aid.
Give us your fiery devic power
As we give you our human love.
Fill every place with power and life!
Share with us the labours of this earth,
That the life-force within be set free.
MUSIC
Hail, devas of Music!
Come to our aid.
Sing to us your songs of joy;
Fill us with divine harmony.
Awaken us, that we may hear your voice;
Attune our ears to your song;
Ensoul our earthly music with your light.
Share with us the labours of the earth,
That men may hear the melodies you sing
Beyond the realms of Space and Time.
GUARDIAN DEVAS OF THE HOME
Hail, Guardian Angels of the Home!
Come to our aid,
Share with us our work and play.
Be with us that we may hear your wings
And feel your breath upon our cheek;
Come close, and sense our human love.
Take our hands in yours,
Lift us for a while
From the burden of this flesh.
Grant us to share with you
Your wondrous freedom throughout space
Your vivid life in sunlit air,
Your great intensity of joy,
Your unity with Life.
Help us so to work and play
That the time may be brought near
When all our race
Shall know you well,
And hail you brother pilgrims
On the path to God.
Hail, Guardian Angels of the Home!
Come to our aid,
Share with us our work and play,
That the Life within may be set free

BUILDING ANGELS
Hail, devic hosts who build!
Come to our aid;
Help this new birth
Into the world of men.
Strengthen the mother in her pain;
And send your gracious angels
To attend the bed of birth,
And usher in the dawn
Of this new life.
Give to the coming child
The blessing of our Lord.
Hail, devic hosts who build!
Come to our aid;
Help this new birth into the world of men,
That the divinity within may be set free.
HEALING ANGELS
Hail, devas of the Healing Art!
Come to our aid.
Pour forth your healing life
Into this (place or person)
Let every cell be charged anew
With vital force.
To every nerve give peace.
Let tortured sense be soothed.
May the rising tide of life
Set every limb aglow,
As, by your healing power,
Both soul and body are restored.
Leave here (or there) an angel watcher,
To comfort and protect,
Till health returns or life departs,
That he may ward away all ill,
May hasten the returning strength
Or lead to peace when life is done.
Hail, devas of the Healing Art!
Come to our aid,
And share with us the labours of this earth,
That God may be set free in man.
ANGELS OF NATURE
Hail, devas of the earth and sky!
Come to our aid.
Give fertility to our fields,
Give life to all our seeds,
That this our earth may be fruitful.
Hail, devas of the earth and sky!
Come to our aid;
Share with us the labours of our world
That the divinity within may be set free.
 ANGELS OF BEAUTY AND OF ART
Hail, angels of the Hand of God!
Come to our aid.
Impress upon our worlds
Of thought, of feeling and of flesh,
A sense of Divine Beauty.
Help us to see the vision of the Self,
To recognise in all created things
The Beauty of the Self;
That through the Beauty we may find,
Hid deep behind external veils
Of colour, line and form,
The Very Self.
Thus, having helped us,
Inspire us with the power
To give expression in our lives
To all that we have seen—
To the Good, the True, the Beautiful.
Grant that we may see and know You, the angels of His Hand,
That, seeing, we may learn to share
Your task of shedding beauty on the world.
Hail, angels of the Hand of God!
Come to our aid.
Share with us the labours of this earth,
That the beauty within may be revealed.
Evening Hymns of Prayer And Thankgiving
1.
May blessings from above
Flow forth and beautify the human love
Which we in gratitude pour forth
To you, our angel helpers of this day.
Accept our love and grateful prayers
And help us, so to live and work,
 That ever, day by day,
Your hosts shall find us growing
Akin to you.
We crave this night your guardianship for all,
Be with the young, the aged, and the sick;
Surround their beds with wings
of light and peace,
Cherish them, we pray, until the dawn.
And, as the sun once more returns
To give us life and warmth and light,
Let us again prelude our work
With salutation and with praise
To Him Who is the Father of us all;
That, hand in hand and side by side,
His human and His angel sons
May labour in His Name
To bring about the glorious day
When, in our world and theirs,
His Will alone shall reign.
AMEN

2.
Night gathers to its close our earthly day,
And now we gather here, our angel guest,
To offer thee our love and gratitude;
To thank thee for thy service.
May Those Who labour ever night and day,
Pour down upon thee blessings manifold,
Send thee Their super-human love and grace;
May Their compassion fill thee, and Their life,
Till, overflowing, streams of love shall fall
From Thee to us, flow back from us to thee,
Binding our hearts in bonds of brotherhood,
 Uniting us by links of love divine.
We pray thee, ever answer our call,
For we would ever open our hearts to thee.
Come closer, blessed messengers of God,
We would hear Him in the beating
of thy wings.
In silence, in serenity of heart and mind,
We greet thee, at the closing of this day;
May He enfold thee in His everlasting arms
Till His radiance and His joy shine through thee.
Be with the children, blessed one, this night;
Be with the aged and the sick;
By each bed a guardian angel stand
That all may sleep in peace, waking betimes
To feel thy guardian presence with them still.
AMEN
 ORDERING

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 Notes

[←1]
*See Chapter 4.

[←2]
*Deva is a comprehensive term for the whole companion evolution, from the least nature spirit to the
greatest Archangel.

[←3]
*See Chapter XIII.

[←4]
*The valley in which the messages were received.

[←5]
*See Chapter VIII.